Chile highlights tour - brought to you by Dr. Elisa Adventures

I just finished showing the preliminary results from my project to my collaborators - they were pretty excited about them - so now it feels like vacation has started!

My plans have changed a little bit since I last posted. Originally, I was supposed to leave tomorrow morning to Santiago to spend Christmas with my friends in Santiago. But on Wednesday morning I woke up and realized that my house didn't have electricity. It wasn't a blackout because my neighbors and ECIM had electricity. My neighbor even came over to help me; we tried all the switches with no luck. I tried calling and emailing my friends in Santiago, who are also my landlords, but I still hadn't heard back from them by yesterday afternoon. So I decided to pack up my bags and stay at the dormitories at ECIM. I imagine it would be pretty awkward to show up on their doorstep after not hearing from them, so I'm going to spend Christmas here too. Luckily, Gonzalo and possibly Sebastian and Rondrigo will be here. It actually works out because the tides look really good on Sunday, so I plan on going out to do one last thing. The tides have been really bad all this week, so I would have felt like I had unfinished business if I had left tomorrow. Christmas will be totally different than any other I've experience before, but it's kind of exciting and I'm actually looking forward to it.

Starting on Monday morning, I will be traveling! I've tried to include links and information in case you want some ideas for what to do in Chile. I call this a 'Chile highlights tour'.

My MIF ('Most Important Friend'; we met each other when she moved in two houses away when I was 9 years old and she's almost like a sister), Nicole, is flying in to Santiago on Monday morning. So I plan to catch an early bus from Las Cruces and meet her at the airport. Then, I'll whisk her away on a bus to Vicuña, a charming little town in Valle del Elqui, known for the best stargazing in the world, the Chilean Nobel Prize winning poet Gabriel Mistral, and viticulture. We'll spend four nights at Hostal Donde Rita, which was recommended to me by a group of German tourists I met in Valparaíso. Supposedly, it's owned by a German woman named Rita who moved there with her husband after visiting and falling in love with the climate and scenery. After her husband died, she turned their home into a Hostel, where she feeds her guests large German breakfasts and fresh-baked treats and throws bbqs and pool parties with her hot Chilean gardeners (!!). Using the hostel as our base camp, possible activities include (but are not limited to): visiting the local observatory, hiking, drinking Pisco at the Mistral distillery in Pisco Elqui, horseback riding, and pool parties and bbqs with Rita.

On the 30th, we'll travel to Valparaíso. On the 31st, one of my best friends from graduate school, Gloriana, will meet us there. She's taking a course in developmental biology in Quintay, a small town just north of Las Cruces, starting on January 5, so she's coming a few days early so we can see Chile together.

Not only is basically all of Valparaíso a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but is supposedly the best place to spend New Year's Eve in South America, if not the world. My friends at ECIM have been talking about it for the last month, which is partially what influenced me to stay in Chile through the holidays. Several of them will meet us there, along with hundreds of thousands of other Chileans, for one last hurrah. Starting a month ago, I tried finding a room for Gloriana because she's pregnant, but everything was booked or quintuple the normal rate. I emailed one final hostel to ask them if they had availability on the 2nd and 3rd, resigned to the fact that I wouldn't spend New Year's in Valpo. But to my surprise the owner replied that he also had availability on the 30th and 31st and 'in case you didn't know, Valparaíso is the best place to spend New Year's Eve.' To which I promptly replied, 'Yeah, I know! I'll take it!!!' and then jumped out of my seat to do the happy dance.

We'll use Valparaíso as our base camp until the 3rd, visiting nearby places like Viña del Mar and Concon. After that, we'll travel to Las Cruces to show them the labs and then to Santiago to see a little bit of the city before we all go our separate ways: Nicole will return to Los Angeles, Gloriana will travel to Quintay, and my next adventure will begin.

On the evening of January 4th, I'll be taking a bus south for 14 hours to Chiloé, an island archipelago that is home to mythical stories of the Caleuche and Trauco and UNESCO World Heritage Site wooden churches.

Caleuche is a mythical ghost ship that appears off the coast of Chiloé, full of lights and sounds of a party onboard, that is crewed by the drowned and fisherman and sailors that were kidnapped. I imagine the myth originated as a way to console the families of the drowned and missing because Chilote livelihood is so tied to the ocean. I first learned about it when I moved into mi casita in Las Cruces because the street before mine is named after it. In fact, the Caleuche is painted on street signs at the corner.

The Trauco is a mythical creature that inhabits the woods of Chiloé and is best known for impregnating beautiful young women, who find it irresistible. The legend also says that it is married to an ugly and wicked woman. (Hmmm, I wonder who invented this story?) The Trauco is sometimes invoked to explain sudden or unwanted pregnancies, especially in unmarried women. Funny enough, I lived on Pasaje Trauco in Las Cruces.






After Chiloé, I'm traveling to Northern Patagonia. It has been my mission to go to Patagonia since the beginning of this year. The idea was first put in my head by my friend Kennie, a friend and hiking buddy that I met while taking the Wilderness Basics Course through the San Diego Chapter of the Sierra Club. She suggested we do a girl's hiking trip with another friend from the WBC, Christine, to Patagonia after watching the documentary 180º South. But initially we were planning to go to Torres del Paine in Southern Patagonia because that's where all the 'Gringos' go. But it wasn't until I came to Chile that I learned that I should visit Northern Patagonia. Not only is it the most remote part of Patagonia, but the landscape is going to change dramatically due to HidroAysén, a huge power project that will build 5 hydroelectric dams in the Aysén region of Patagonia to provide power to Santiago and mines in the North. It is a huge controversy in Chile because of the large environmental impact the project is expected to have, including the construction of one major dam in a national park and the flooding of people's farms that all the dams will cause. Since it's announcement, there have been major protests throughout the country. Despite the huge public backlash, President Piñera approved the project in May. Which is why I'm going now.

For more information and beautiful photos, check this video out:

On January 7th, my Turkish friends from Boston, Mutlu and Demet, will meet me in Puerto Montt, where we'll board a ferry to travel further south through the fjords of Chile to Northern Patagonia. After 18 hours, we'll arrive in Puerto Chacabuco where we'll rent a car and drive further south on the Carretera Austral, which is supposedly one of the world's best road trips. I was planning to bus it before Mutlu and Demet told me they would come, so I'm super excited they're coming because we'll be able to see a lot more. We'll stay three nights at Hostal Puesto in Puerto Rio Tranquilo, which is located just North of dams Baker I and II:

The owners also organizes glacier tours and kayaking around the Capillas de Marmol:

Then we'll travel further south, passing through Cochrane, one of the towns expected to experience the biggest change in population growth from the project. I'm also hoping we'll drive through the future Patagonia National Park, which just opened in December, and is home to endemic species like the Huemel Deer. Before driving back up north, we'll visit Caleta Tortel, a small village on the edge of a glacier-fed lake:

It's going to be the adventure of a lifetime! I doubt I'll have time to post along the way, but I promise to share pictures and stories from my adventure when I return to either California on the 17th of January or Boston on the 22nd. In the meantime, Felices Fiestas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

In case you didn't know already, I've decided to spend my first Christmas away from home in order to travel a little bit more. I'll post more details about my travel plans later this week, but basically I will spend Christmas with my friends in Santiago before my friends Nicole, Gloriana, Mutlu, and Demet come down from the US to meet me to travel around this beautiful and diverse country for three weeks.

It's been strange because I have not been feeling the Christmas spirit down here in Chile. Not only does it feel like Spring/Summer and missing are the usual smells of fallen leaves and wood-burning chimneys, but the Christmas spirit arrived a little later than it usually does in the US. Maybe it's because they don't celebrate Thanksgiving or because they're on Latino time? At any rate, malls haven't been playing Christmas music since November and they only put up a Christmas tree at ECIM last week.

I only started to get in the Christmas spirit yesterday. The ECIM Christmas party is tonight, which has finally put me in the Christmas mood. I went to San Antonio yesterday to buy a gift for my 'amigo secreto' (Secret Santa) at the Christmas fair in the plaza. I also went searching for ingredients for the food item I decided to bring.

I decided to make biscochitos! They are obviously not paleo or primal, although they are ancestral! I wanted to share with everyone a treat from my New Mexican heritage that I associate with Christmas in the US. The idea initially came to me when thinking of something to bring to Christmas Eve dinner at my friends in Santiago. The ECIM party provided the perfect opportunity to try the recipe out first.

The best part of the recipe is that it calls for lard, which brings me to a topic that I've been wanting to bring up about food in Chile. When I went to the market to look for lard, I thought 'I'm in a Latino country, there should be lots of options.' Boy was I wrong. There was only one kind of real lard. But there were about ten different types of 'manteca modificada', basically processed lard that is made instead with vegetable oils and trans-fats. But it's not just manteca that is processed, the rest of the refrigerator section is filled with margarines and no-fat or low-fat yogurts that are equally as processed:

Seriously, that is all margarine.

This is only 1/3 of the case of yogurt. Among all of it, I've only been able to find two 'natural' yogurts (i.e., not with sugar as the second ingredient and with five ingredients or less).















As I mentioned in a previous post, the nutrition recommendations of a low-fat, high carbohydrate diet are just as prevalent in Chile as in the US. Chile is also the South American country with the highest rate of obesity, which provides even more support that implementation of these nutrition recommendations are correlated with a rise in obesity. But I feel like it's more 'in your face' here. Every Friday the news has an hour-long section on diet and health in which they demonize fats and promote fiber and whole grains. There's also the equivalent of the Dr. Oz show. And the topic of how fats are bad and carbs are good has come up with almost every person I've talked to, without me bringing it up first. But as I've come to learn that animal fats do not cause heart disease but trans-fats and sugars do, the supermarket refrigerator cases full of margarines and non-fat or low-fat yogurts have really left me shocked and saddened.

But back to the issue at hand: biscochos! The recipe also called for anís, which was the most difficult ingredient to find. They didn't have anís seed, but only the flavoring which would have to do. Not to mention that the ground cinnamon here is not very fine, so the cookies look a little weird. It also called for brandy, but I decided to give it a Chilean twist by adding pisco. The result?

Delicious! (yes, I tried a few. Ok, five. Hey, I needed to get in the holiday spirit!) Although the anís flavor is more subtle than I like and the cinnamon makes the cookies look burned, the lard gave the cookies the perfect crispy texture. I also think it helped modulate the same buzzy, I'm gonna have a panic attack feeling that I get now from refined sugar and flour. I've tried other biscocho recipes before, but this one is definitely the best. And they would be even better back in the US, where I know where to find the right ingredients ;)

A breath of fresh Pomaire

I had another visitor at mi casita this weekend! I met Marinela through Yolanda, the Mexican woman that I met at the hostel in Valparaíso a few weeks ago. Yolanda and Marinela met through couch-surfing and the three of us were all meeting for the first time that weekend, but we hit it off immediately. So much so that I've kept in touch with Marinela since then, visiting her last weekend in Santiago. This weekend she decided to escape the heat of the city to visit me at the beach in Las Cruces. I was hoping she would bring the sun with her because we've had the Chilean version of June gloom ('December bummer'?) for the past week or so in Las Cruces.

The sun never appeared at the beach while she was visiting me, so we decided to visit Pomaire on Sunday.

 Entrance to the village of Pomaire.


















Pomaire is a small village 30 miles inland, halfway between Las Cruces and Santiago, that has become famous for clay ('greda') pottery and parilla (grilled meat) restaurants. The main drag is lined with shop after shop selling every variation of pottery you can dream of:




















We spent a while moseying down the street, popping into stores, and shopping. Most of the shops are filled with kitchen items, like baking dishes, plates, cups, pots for storing garlic, etc.

Besides the shops, Pomaire was also filled with beautiful, colorful architecture and nature:

Afterwards, we ate lunch at Casa Colorado because it had an outdoor grill and nice shaded patio:

I ate costillar de las brasas (grilled pork ribs) and ensalada surtida (mixed salad):

It was so delicious that I had to thank the chef, who was outside grilling:

Sun, shopping, grilled meat - I couldn't have imagined a more perfect day!

Cooking like a Chilean! Well, a low-carb Chilean

I haven't posted about food in a while because I've been slaving away in the kitchen, trying out Chilean recipes and piling up my stock of photos. Apart from the bread that graces every Chilean table, Chilean food is pretty Paleo-Primal-Ancestral-friendly. I've even tried some new things, mostly just new combinations that I never thought of, that will definitely be gracing my dinner table when I get back to the States. Here they are, in no particular order of preference (mom, you'll be proud!):

'Once' (eleven) is what most Chileans eat instead of dinner because lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Usually, it consists of cheese, palta (avocado), deli meat, and bread. Although I usually skip the bread, the rest of the items are perfect. I just cut slices of cheese or roll up the ham and slather on some palta. Yum!

Palta reina (stuffed avocado) - This is a combination that I had never thought of that I adore and will definitely be eating back in the states, if the prices of avocado don't give me a heart attack first (you can buy four here for $1.50). Just cut the palta in half, then stuff it with tuna, and presto! your tasty snack or lunch is served.

Reineta con champiñones (Reineta with mushrooms) - Reineta is a fish that is only found along the Chilean coast. The sale of this fish only began in the 1990's, but now it's the most prominent species in every fish market that you visit in Chile because of it's texture and flavor (kind of like halibut). I think this is the dish that I'm most proud of because I hadn't really cooked fish before and it was so tasty and satisfying.

Churrasco! (thinly sliced beef) This is my go-to dish when I don't have a lot of time to cook. It might not look that great, but let me tell you - with some thyme and olive oil (suggested by my friends in Santiago), it is delicious!

Chuletas con Merkén (pork chops with merkén) - I've gotten the exact same exact response from both of the butchers at my supermarket when I asked for the fattier pork chops: 'Te gustas la grasita, eh?' (with huge smile). I think they trip out that a tiny girl like me eats fat. Although they don't measure up to John Crow Farm pork chops, they're pretty satisfying. And merkén is a spice mix that is a specialty of the indigenous Mapuche people in southern Chile. It's made with ají, a type of chile that's common in Chile (haha), and other spices like cilantro. I picked this one up in Valparaíso and thought it was pretty special because it was handmade until my friend let me smell hers, which was more smoky and powerful. I'm definitely going to have to pick up some when I travel south.

Pana (chicken livers) - I can just see my mom's face right now because she hates liver. But it is a prominent fixture in Malloco's meat case so one day while I was feeling brave I decided to give it a try. I found a recipe that called for red pepper, thyme, onion, garlic and chile which I substituted with ají. It was actually pretty good! Although, I had about enough of it after having it for dinner and then lunch the next day.











And for the grand finale!!!!

Pernil! (pork shoulder) - These, along with pig's feet (which I'll probably also try before I leave), are also prominent fixtures in Malloco's meat case. It even had little hairs on the skin - how's that for organic? I let it marinate in olive oil, garlic, and spices for a day before roasting it for a couple of hours. Then a group of us at ECIM feasted on it. It was delicious!






Now I'm hungry! Time for dinner!

Working at ECIM

I enjoy doing field work at ECIM because it's so convenient, beautiful, and at times very exciting!

ECIM consists of a collection of buildings including the old labs, which have offices for students and professors, laboratories, cold rooms, and wet tables.

The old laboratory building, overlooking the Bay of Cartagena.













Two years ago they also built a brand new laboratory facility, complete with an auditorium, wet and computer labs for teaching, and changing rooms with showers. It's a gorgeous building that reminds me a lot of the new Robert Paine Scripps Forum at Scripps Institution of Oceanography:

The tidepools just below the laboratories have been given protection as a reserve. So a lot of the research projects at ECIM compare abundances of certain species, especially the 'loco' which is a major fishery species in Chile, and species interactions within and outside the reserve. To get to the reserve, all you have to do is walk down some stairs and you're there!

Walking down the stairs to the ECIM reserve. On the right hand side is 'ECIM Norte' while on the left is 'ECIM Sur'.













My experiment is set up in ECIM Sur because it consists of two large pools with good rock substrates on either side that face in different directions relative to the sun, an important aspect of my project. Because the tides are not that low in Chile, I have to wear a wetsuit every day so I don't get cold while  taking photos and standing waist-deep in water:

Standing in ECIM Sur - Do you think SeaWorld would finally hire me as Shamu's trainer?

Working in the tidepools here makes working in Woods Hole look like working in the Mediterranean (aside from the cold). Because Woods Hole is in Buzzards Bay, the tide can get very low and there are hardly any waves. But the tides never get that low and the waves can be really big at ECIM.

I love working at ECIM Sur on super calm days, when the tide is low and the waves are small. Here's what one of those days looks like:

Often the tides are much higher and the waves much bigger, making the conditions not so ideal. On these days, I can only get to 8 out of the 10 sites that I installed plates at because two of them require jumping across a divet in the rocks that funnels water like a rocket. Here's what I call one of these 'doable' days:

Based on this video you can probably imagine what a not so good day would be like! Ideally, I would go out every day to take photos of the barnacles settling on the plates. But sometimes it's too scary and even a little dangerous. 

The sounds of the waves crashing on the rocks was enough to scare me even on the doable days at first. But I've gotten used to it over time. Now the main thing that worries me as I walk to ECIM Sur is getting attacked by one of these guys:

They might seem docile in this photo, but most days they like to scream and fly menacingly close to my head to try to get me out of their territory!

Field work in Cartagena and ECIM

Yesterday was my friend and collaborator Jessica's birthday. As a birthday present to her, the German student Hagen and I offered to go in the field for her.

Jessica is studying barnacle settlement at two points in the Bay of Cartagena to determine how large-scale physical processes, such as currents, affect larval settlement among sites separated by 30 km.

Las Cruces, where ECIM is located, and Cartagena are at opposite ends of the Bay of Cartagena.














To do this, she's installed settlement plates at opposite ends of the bay, in Cartagena and ECIM Sur, as well as temperature loggers. Every morning and evening she goes out to collect the plates and deploy new ones. She then brings the plates back to the lab to count how many larvae settled in the past 12 hours. I go out for her once a week or every two weeks because it's a collaborative project and a lot of work for one person. Hopefully, with our combined data we'll get an idea of what affects settlement patterns of barnacles on both large and small scales.

Below are some photos from both Cartagena and ECIM. Sometimes the field work gets pretty hairy! I usually act as a wave spotter and change the plates from a dry spot while Hagen does all the 'wet work'.

Hagen recovering the plates in Cartagena.

Changing the plates.

Hagen fixing something before reinstalling the plates while I spot waves.

Hanging on to the rock for dear life as a big wave approaches. That day he actually fell in the water after not getting out of the way in time.

Changing the plates at ECIM Sur yesterday.

The tide was high and the waves were really big!

Walking out to recover another set of plates at ECIM Sur.

Recovering the plates.

Bracing himself against an oncoming wave before trying to reinstall the plates.












In the next couple of days I hope to write a post about my field work, especially what it's like to take photos at my field site. Stay tuned!

Dr. Elisa

Today is the 2nd anniversary of my Ph.D. defense! Thanks Margarete for taking these photos:

GOOD TIMES!

More days in the lives of Las Cruces dogs

There are lots of stray dogs in Las Cruces, and Chile in general. At first I was afraid of them, but I soon realized that they're all really friendly. Now I enjoy getting to know their little quirks.

For example, the ones in Las Cruces run in packs. And the dogs in each pack usually look the same. The German Shepherds run with the German Shepherds, the Black Labs with Black Labs, and mutts with mutts. They also stake out their own little territories. For example, every morning I find the three German Shepherds sleeping on the corner outside the old Panadería:

As I get closer to ECIM, the next pack of dogs, including mostly black labs and a random Weimaraner, runs to greet me:

That's not a dog with two tails nor two dogs; it's just the HDR on my camera. Notice the other black lab hanging out by the trash can.

But my favorite group of dogs is this one:

They have claimed the empty lot across from mi casita. There's a third one that's not in this photo because it's usually standing guard at the end of the street. My favorite is the one on the right because of its huge ears. It's also really timid, which I find really sweet. Most of all it's really comforting to have them as neighbors because they greet me when I come home and bark when someone or something is outside. Now if only I could take them all home!

An unusually exciting Saturday in Las Cruces

The weekends are pretty quiet in Las Cruces. It's not quite summer yet, so most of the houses are boarded up and the streets are usually empty. But there was an exciting buzz in the air due to two events this weekend.

First, this weekend was the Teletón. The Teletón is Chile's version of Jerry Lewis's MDA Telethon in the States. Except it is a HUGE deal here. They've been building it up for several months. I first heard about it from commercials on TV when I arrived in September. And about a month ago I started noticing donation cans in my local supermarket. The Teletón started at 10 pm Friday and ran 26 hours until late Saturday night. I watched the first hour on Friday night and when I woke up the next morning at 6:30 am, they were still going. What surprised me most, though, is that the entire country seems to participate. Early Saturday morning there were already reporters in almost every large city in Chile, interviewing people who had shown up for huge fundraising breakfasts in the neighborhoods and at banks. But the best part was that there were already cumbia bands (you know how much I love cumbia!) playing in the streets of Santiago, which I got to enjoy on tv:

  

There are some people who don't like the Teletón, though.  My friend Rondrigo is a good example. He told me that the State doesn't give any money to disabled children for rehabilitation, so the main source of funding comes from the Teletón. The Teletón does great work, as evidenced by the numerous stories of disabled children getting the care they need. But he thinks the money should come from the State instead of expecting the Chileans - some of whom are probably struggling themselves - to pay for it. Not to mention that large companies get huge tax breaks for donating amounts that are miniscule in comparison to their profits. And there's some disagreement about whether they are spending some of the donations on the elaborate show, including venues and performers such as Don Francisco. I guess you never know with those kinds of things. At any rate, it was an interesting cultural experience.

The second thing to happen this weekend was a Las Cruces resident, Nicanor Parra, won the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish version of the Nobel in Literature. Nicanor writes 'anti-poesía', a form of poetry which 'uses common elements of language and modifies them to absurdity in a manner that attracts attention to the poet' - I don't really understand it, that's just my translation from Wikipedia in spanish. He's just as famous, though, in Chile as Pablo Neruda. The press has been stationed outside of his house for days and it's been all over the National news, but Nicanor wasn't giving interviews to the press.

Then, on Saturday, I met up with my friends, Rondrigo, Hagen, and Simon at ECIM. I like to call them the three musketeers:

You already know Rondrigo. Hagen (left) is a 19 year-old kid from Germany who's spending six months working at ECIM after graduating high school. Simon is from Liverpool, England and came to ECIM to get some research experience in order to help him decide whether he wants to pursue graduate studies. These guys are always together and a ton of fun to be around.

That day we decided to go look for Nicanor's house after walking to the Supermercado Malloco in town. Las Cruces isn't that big so it was a quick walk. And when we got there, Nicanor was standing on his doorstep talking to a group of people! He waved to us as we strolled up and then continued telling all of us about his life (that's him with the white hair): 

 

It was quite the experience. Imagine, a Cervantes Prize winner in tiny Las Cruces!

Minority Postdoc blogroll

My blog was added to the list of diversity bloggers at MinorityPostdoc.org! This comes as a result of networking during the blogging symposium at SACNAS. Dr. David Kroll also added my blog to his blogroll at Terra Sigillata.

Thanks, Alberto and David, for adding my blog to your lists. It's an honor to be in the company of other amazing diversity bloggers.

Check them out here and here.

Valparaíso and Viña del Mar

This weekend I wasn't planning to go out in the field because the tide was high and the waves were really big, so I decided to visit Valparaíso and Viña del Mar instead. I am so glad I did because it was a memorable trip.

I was a little anxious about traveling solo when I left Friday night, but I immediately made friends with other solo travelers when I checked in at the Hostal Caracol on Cerro Bellavista in Valparaíso. I first met Alex Benavides, a Peruvian-American from Oregon that works in stream restoration for the Bureau of Land Management. He was visiting Valparaíso for a couple of days after traveling to Patagonia for a couple of weeks and before visiting family in Lima on his way back to the States. We ate Caldo de Congrio (Conger eel soup - delicious!) and drank wine at a local restaurant before calling it a night.

At breakfast the next morning, I met a group of women who are teaching at the American school in Asuncíon, Paraguay and were visiting Valpo for the weekend. They invited me to join them in exploring the hills of Valpo. I'm really glad I joined them because they liked to do the same things I do: walk, shop, and eat!

Most things were closed when we started, so we stopped and had coffee at El Desayunador on Cerro Alegre:

It was super cute inside:

Then we just roamed around Cerro Alegre, admiring the many colors of Valpo:

We found a super yummy restaurant on Cerro Alegre called 'Bijoux Restobar'.

It is a 'market fresh' restaurant, which means that they have a limited menu of ingredients from the market that day. Our options were fish or meat, in either soup or plates. I chose the Caldillo de Viejo, a soup made with mussels and a local rockfish that live very long lives. I felt a little bit bad about eating it, but my desire to try something new and local was much greater. It was delicious:

 

And I had great company:

  

The girls traveled to Santiago that afternoon. After they left, I visited San Sebastiana, the third and final home of Pablo Neruda. As usual, the views from his home were dramatic:

  

I ended the day with wine and dinner in the hostel kitchen with Alex and Yolanda, a Mexican woman who lives in California. I thought it was cool that we were technically all 'gringos' with Latino heritage.

On Sunday, Yolanda and I spent some more time wandering around Valpo and admiring the amazing colors:

  

  

In the afternoon, the sky cleared so we decided to head to the beach at Viña del Mar, a posh city just 20 minutes away known for its shopping and beaches. Yolanda's friend, Marianela, that she met through couch-surfing, joined us. Marianela is a German girl that lives in Santiago, but you wouldn't believe that she was German because she has really great Chilean and English accents!

As we walked along Playa del Sol, we saw amazing sand sculptures:

  

 We ate dinner while we watched the sunset:

 

I decided to stay one more night at the hostel because the tides were going to be really bad on Monday, I was having a really great time, and Yolanda's birthday was the next day. She really wanted to spend her birthday at Neruda's house in Isla Negra, but it's closed on Mondays. So she decided to spend her birthday at the beach and go to Neruda's house the next day. So we took the micro to the beach - originally we were planning to go to Concón, a 30 minute ride from Viña but the bus driver didn't notify us at the stop so we ended up riding for an hour all the way to Quintero. Although the bay wasn't that pretty because there were lots of ships and refineries along its edge, it was peaceful and the water was pretty. And it was nice to get some sun:

  

Because Isla Negra is 15 minutes from my house, I invited Yolanda to return to Las Cruces with me. It ended up working out really well because my friends were having a bonfire on the beach that night. What better way to end a fabulous weekend?!

Now I'm back to work. It took me a few days to post this because I had to finish up a couple of applications earlier this week. But now I'm done - whew!